King on the Man Who Was a Fool
by Thomas Allen
In “The Man Who Was a Fool,” Strength to Love (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1963, 2010), pages 65–73, Martin Luther King, Jr. discusses the deleterious effects of pursuing wealth, poverty, materialism, theistic humanism, and the importance of the spiritual. The following is a critical review of King’s essay.
King begins with the parable of a certain rich man found in Luke 12:16-20, a theme that he carries throughout this essay. If this rich man lived today, “he would be considered ‘a big shot’ . . . with social prestige and community respectability. He would be one of the privileged few in the economic power structure.” (P. 66.)
Continuing, King remarks that Jesus did not call this man a fool because he was rich but because he misused his wealth. “The rich man was a fool because he permitted the ends for which he lived to become confused with the means by which he lived.” (P. 66.)
King contends that each person “lives in two realms, the internal and the external.” (P. 66.) The external world is the material world. It is how a person lives, while the internal world is the purpose of a person’s life, its ends.
Then, King moves toward his social justice: “Religion at its best realizes that the soul is crushed as long as the body is tortured with hunger pangs and harrowed with the need for shelter.” (P. 67.) (Thus, King justifies governments taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Unfortunately, he seems unconcerned that governments only give a small amount of what they take to the poor; they keep most for themselves. Unlike King, Jesus was not a proponent of the welfare state. He wanted the rich man to give voluntarily to the poor because of concern for the poor.)
Correctly, King notices that the pursuit of wealth often makes a person intellectually and spiritually poor. People who make the pursuit of wealth their goal often fail to realize their dependency on others and God. They are “I” people instead of “we” people. They are victims “of the cancerous disease of egotism.” (P. 68.) (Often, King seems to suffer from the cancerous disease of egotism.)
Next, King applies this parable to the present world. He writes, “Our nation’s productive machinery constantly brings forth such an abundance of food that we must build larger barns and spend more than a million dollars daily to store our surplus.” (P. 68.) He urges giving the excess to the poverty-stricken people in Asia, Africa, and South America and the poor in America. (The United States have followed King’s recommendation. Yet, poverty still exists. King fails to investigate why some countries are rich while some are poor. He would discover that the innate differences of the people are the cause of most of the differences. Rich countries exploiting poor countries account for only a small part of the difference. For example, Africans sat on an abundance of mineral resources, but they did little with this treasure until the Europeans arrived and taught them how to extract and use the minerals. Likewise, with enormous agricultural potential, African agriculture was barely above subsistence level before the arrival of Europeans.) Erroneously, King asserts that “we can store our surplus food free of charge in the shriveled stomachs of the millions of God’s children who go to bed hungry at night.” (P. 68.) (Moving food from where it is produced to the stomachs of God’s children is not free of charge. Such action costs a great deal — often more than leaving the food in storage — especially if governments are involved in the movement.) “We can use our vast resources of wealth to wipe poverty from the earth.” (P. 68.) (Too many people are becoming wealthy from the poverty industry to allow poverty to be eradicated. Besides, today, politics is the cause of most poverty.)
Continuing, King discusses people’s dependency on other people and other countries. Then, he follows with one of his favorite statements: “ I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.” (P. 69.) (Since no one has ever become and never will become what he ought to be, King never became what he ought to be. Because King never became what he ought to be, no one can become what he ought to be.)
Again, correctly, King notes that “man-centered foolishness [ignoring man’s dependence on God] has had a long and offtimes disastrous reign in the history of mankind.” (P. 69.) Then, he condemns the doctrine of materialism. “Having no place for God or for eternal ideas, materialism is opposed to both theism and idealism.” (P. 70.) Next, he discusses some of the absurdities of materialism.
After that, King condemns theistic humanism, which is another attempt to make God irrelevant, and discusses its flaws. It deifies man: “Man is the measure of all things.” (P. 70.)
Using the atomic bomb as an example, King remarks that “science can give us only physical power, which, if not controlled by spiritual power, will lead inevitably to cosmic doom.” (P. 71.) Then, he quotes Alfred the Great, “Power is never a good unless he be good that has it.” (P. 71.) (Unfortunately, most of the time, bad people end up wielding power.) Thus, he writes, “We need something more spiritually sustaining and morally controlling than science.” (P. 71.) When people forsake God, disasters follow.
Continuing, King states that a person dies when he fails to distinguish “between the means by which he lived and the ends for which he lived and when he failed to recognize his dependence on others and on God.” (P. 72.)
King notices that the abundance that Western Civilization has produced has not brought peace of mind or serenity of spirit. “Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.” (P. 73.) The hope of mankind lies in people reestablishing the spiritual ends of their “lives in personal character and social justice.” (By social justice, King means integrating and giving Negroes everything that they demand.)
In this essay, King makes several correct observations. He condemns materialism, theistic materialism, and scientism, although he does not use this term. He stresses the importance of not forsaking God or one’s fellow man. Also, he shows the importance and necessity of the spiritual. However, he is somewhat of a Luddite.
Copyright © 2024 by Thomas Coley Allen.
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